and Baby makes 3 : )

I FINALLY get to explain why there has been such a lack of posts lately!  We are pregnant!!!  I'm at 13 weeks today and we heard the heart beat last Friday, so I finally feel like we're in the clear to share the news.  Our little one is due Dec. 1st : )  I've been so exhausted and nauseous (thankfully, not too sick) that the idea of coming up with new recipes just hasn't been my thing lately.  I'm just now starting to get some of my energy back - but I'm afraid it's going to go to other projects.  I'm sure I'll come up with some good and quick summer dishes and post about those... but I have a feeling the direction of my energy is about to change.  I'm still couponing, just not as much as I was.  We have a great stockpile of our staples built up (the essentials of paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo, detergent, toothpaste, etc.) but I'm also using my Saturday mornings now to look for baby/infant garage sales.  We've had 2 great weekends so far and have gotten some great essential stuff that we probably would have convinced ourselves was too frivolous to register for.  For example, 2 bottle warmers, one for upstairs and one for downstairs for $5 bucks total!  Or how about the new baby Bjorn carrier for $5 bucks.  Those little scores have let me stay calmer about the big purchases we have coming.  We are over the top excited and have had a full 12 weeks to warm up to all of this.  This week we shared the news with our extended family and friends and my co-workers at work.  I had 24 baby cupcakes made at Giant for the work announcement.  They turned out really cute - the pic is below.

 Because this blog relates to my WLS - there might be some readers wondering how that has all worked (I know some of my WLS buddies read this!).  So here's the deal with that: I have to take my B12 vitamin everyday now instead of once a week.  I'm on a vit. D supplement once a week too.  3 calcium per day and 2 multi's per day.  I'm also supposed to do 1, 30mg of iron per day - but I haven't done that in the last 8 weeks.  I suffered from some serious cramping and upset stomach on those in the 1st trimester (common, even if you're not taking iron), so I was allowed to stop taking that for awhile.  I'm afraid the time has come where I get to incorporate one more chalky little supplement everyday and get the iron back in.  I don't have to take prenatal vitamins like most women because our daily vitamins for life actually have more of all of that than the prenatal vitamins do.  There is one company that makes chewable prenatal, but they are not specifically tailored to our bariatric needs, so they recommend just upping the normal vitamins we take.  I'm not going to lie, the vitamins have been a true pain.  There are days I can hardly choke them down and there were other days that if I couldn't bring myself to eat a lot because of the nausea, the round of vitamins for that night got skipped. 

So far, my lab work looks good.  I'll have 2 more sets of labs drawn during the pregnancy - once at the end of June and once in September to make sure my levels still look good.  And yes, this is the full workup.  For any WLS people out there, my first lab work was 22 tubes of blood.  It was UNBEARABLE!  18 for WLS and 6 for pregnancy.  The next 2 should just be 18 each.  Other interesting tidbits as it relates to WLS... I actually lost about 10 pounds in the first trimester.  I started the beginning of March around 186 (when we conceived) and up until last week I was at 174.  This last week I put on my first weight and I have a feeling, it's just going to keep going up.  I'm actually feeling relieved to gain weight - I was starting to get worried.  There is a glucose test that they do around 20 or 28 weeks (I can't remember) that we are not allowed to do.  Basically they have you drink this pure sugar stuff to see how your body handles the sugar and to check for gestational diabetes.  We have a fasting blood draw taken, we're sent to go have something to eat (they recommended we do it on a Saturday and go out for breakfast) and then come back 2 hours lately to have a 2nd blood draw to test the sugar in our blood. I think breakfast out sounds much better than drinking nasty sugar substance anyway!  Nutritionally, I'm eating more often - what we were always told was "grazing" is now what I do.  It helps me from getting nauseous.  I've had some cravings, but I have a feeling that is about to really kick in.  So far, my biggest craving has been cheetos!  Something I haven't even thought about in a year and a half.  I've increased my carbs considerably and have stopped worrying so much about whole wheat vs. white carbs.  Frankly, if it looks good and I can eat it (nothing with sugar of course), I'm allowing myself to have it.  I'll have to be more diligent as my appetite comes back.

My body is changing big time!  Up a bra size already and probably another in the next couple of weeks.  My waist is getting larger and my belly is just barely starting to pop out.  All the "toned" areas are now gone - I swear, even my calves look flabbier.  It's like I put on my layer of winter fat in the middle of summer!  My skin is changing, it's been really dry - but I've always suffered from eczema and for the first time in my life, that has completely cleared up.  I have hormonal pimples that are really annoying.  I know I shouldn't complain, but I've never really had to deal with bad skin and this is annoying!  Something I didn't know that I'm glad I figured out... Kohl's carries Petite length maternity pants.  They were having a major fall/winter clearance of their clothes about 6 weeks ago and I was able to score some maternity dress pants in a petite length that were only 6 bucks!  I realize shopping 8 months in advance might seem nuts, but at least I'll have one pair of non-stretchy pants!  We're going to be taking prego pictures every 4 weeks or so to track the change.  I'm sure I'll be posting those as we go.  The 16 month pics that I posted awhile back are actually me at 10 weeks. Not really showing at all there - but that will be the first round of pics I start with as my pregnancy pics.

Alright, time to wrap this up.  Crazy long post, but we've been sitting on this for 3 months!  Just glad we can finally now share and I can get back to posting (maybe just about different things ;)